For the past few months we've been hearing about how the economy is tanking and so forth. The press has been criticizing administration officials and Bush for calling it a "slowdown" instead of the more alarmist "recession" when quizzed on economic issues.

A recession is - by definition - a decline in a nation's GDP for two or more successive quarters. An economic slowdown on the other hand (despite Wikipedia redirecting that term to recession) is simply a decrease in growth of the GDP. I understand that experts love to be on the cutting edge, but so far anyone claiming that we are in a recession has been totally incorrect. It is demonstrablyfalse. Even if you discount inflation.

I'm not trying to say that the economy is booming and it is certainly possible that a recession could start this quarter. We aren't growing nearly as fast as most other nations out there, but the ongoing talk of recession is dishonest and inaccurate at best. So, the next time you hear a talking head start complaining about our continuing recession, before you panic remember that they've been calling it a recession for months and they've been wrong to date.